City moves toward community garden ordinance

There's no mention anywhere in any of Fort Lauderdale's ordinances about planting and growing a vegetable garden in your backyard.

Nothing is said, either, about turning plots of land into urban farms and growing produce – lettuce and eggplant, broccoli and collard greens and a lot more – and selling the stuff to the public.

But all that may be about to change. At a recent City Commission meeting, commissioners directed staffers to draft an ordinance for community gardens and urban farms. It's the first step in acknowledging a phenomenon that is flourishing nationwide.

"The commissioners see the need to recognize this type of land use," said John Albee, who operates a hydroponic farm on Powerline Road. "Changes in agriculture, like genetically modified organisms, are having repercussions, and they're all bad. There has to be a conversation about how people can take control of their own food."

The conversation began early in 2010, said activist and urban gardener Michael Madfis, when the city took note of the 33,000-square-foot garden he was operating on Northwest 12th Avenue.

"The city planners suggested I develop an ordinance that would legalize my farm," Madfis said, adding that any new regulation he proposed was also expected to offer guidance in creating new farm sites. "It was a 'use description.' How big? How wide? How many plants? How would they operate?"

Madfis submitted a draft to the city, which responded with a public workshop the last week in September. Sixty people attended, and one result was the creation of a Sustainability Advisory Board. It consists of urban gardeners like Madfis and Albee.

Its purpose, said city spokesman Chaz Adams, "is to provide recommendations to the City Commission regarding environmental sustainability."

Strategies associated with "conservation, renewable energy, energy efficiency" are to be researched, he said, along with "environmentally sound practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save money, energy and resources and involve city residents in creating an environmental strategic plan."

At their Jan. 23 meeting, this group will review staff efforts aimed at creating an ordinance. A new draft will go before the Planning and Zoning Board, which will review it from a land-use perspective and make further recommendations. Then it will go back before the commission, most likely in the spring.

"We want to be certified," Albee said. "We need a code. We need something done with a broad-stroke brush. We need the opportunity to be more responsible."

There are other benefits, Madfis said. "A garden can grow food to sell to neighbors and to area restaurants and provide a source of income for people who live nearby."

If a garden can pull people away from junk food, there will be health benefits. Investors like the Miami-based Carlyle Development Group see the possibilities in owning garden land.

And history is on the gardeners' side, Albee said. After the barbarians sacked Rome, the survivors cleared the rubble and created urban gardens to keep going. Cubans turned to urban gardening after Russia withdrew support.

"And those Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Those were hydroponic," Albee said.